The GameShadow Blog

So, Games Convention 2008 is well under way in Leipzig, and here’s what you need to know so far.

- VG247 is carrying a great little interview with Gabe Newell, well worth checking out. This also makes Valve the second major PC developer to praise EA’s new outlook in the last week (Epic man Mike Capps was caught bigging up the EA Partners program just the other day). Either EA’s turning a corner, or it’s paying these guys a lot of money to say it has.

- Cevat ‘Crytek’ Yerli has been his usual doom mongering self. “Absolutely, nowadays I don’t think Crytek could have set up,” he said. “To get the trust and commitment from a publisher for a newbie studio…I think it’s quite impossible.” Sounds like a sensible observation to me.

- Sony announced the PSP 3000 model, talked a lot about LittleBigPlanet and Heavy Rain, and lots of casual stuff. Heavy Rain is looking pretty cool, though is resembling Fahrenheit +1 more and more every time I see it. Still, stripping out interface, puzzles and combat in favour of decision making and story sounds like an exciting prospect.

- In silly inconsequential news, a larger cast list for Red Alert 3 has been confirmed, adding Jenny McCarthy as Tanya, Mr Sulu (him out of Star Trek) as the Empire big wig, and - brilliantly - Tom Curry as the big bad soviet leader. You know what? Sequels don’t tend to be my bag, especially when they’re as shallow as the C&C games, but I’m actually beginning to look forward to this.

- EA confirmed that The Sims 3 is closer than we thought: Feb 2009, apparently. ‘It’s kind of like real life’ is the slogan, which is pretty cool.

- Meanwhile, 1Up has a pretty fascinating (and long) interview with Bill Roper on the dissolution of Flagship Studios.

Everything’s still churning away, so keep an eye out for more news as it surfaces.

So, Braid’s finally arrived on Xbox Live, and shot straight to the top of the charts. Developer Jonathan Blow is rightly chuffed - he’s reporting in the region of 30,000 sales and counting, and I haven’t seen so many 10/10 scores in a long time. In fact, Braid is rated the 10th best Xbox 360 game ever and, to be honest, I’d say it was better than most of those anyway - though in a very different way.

Blow has a habit of coming over a bit preachy, but this release has pretty much justified every evil he may ever have done. The game - or at least, the gameplay - is a true triumph of design over budget, and, as Blow points out, goes further than most indie games to reinforce the idea that an independent game can be more than just another retro shooter.

Clearly, though, Blow has an advantage in Braid over the AAA titles - it’s one of simplicity. The core concepts of the game may be fresh, and the level design astounding, but nonetheless its relative simplicity compared to a Bioshock or an Oblivion make it somewhat easier to achieve those 10/10 scores.

The major flaw to the thing is its writing. Blow’s high aspirations are in full, overly verbose flow, and the abstract, intentionally murky story really undermines his lofty intentions - it’s as if he’s saying his story is so artistic it doesn’t need to make sense. For a time it looks like it’s going to go somewhere exciting, somewhere valuable for gaming as a whole, and then it drifts off into Lynchian obscurity, breeding endless discussions of what it all really means. There’s nothing wrong with a subtle piece of story telling and some healthy interpretation on the part of the reader, but hiding your big picture beneath endless layers of confusion doesn’t make you an artist, it just makes people think you are.

Still, it’s nice to see people trying, and I’d take Braid’s writing and plot over 99% of the crap that’s usually turned out by this industry. And I wouldn’t dismiss the gameplay’s quality for a moment - play this thing.

The major MMO from GTA creator Dave Jones’ Dundee based studio Realtime Worlds has finally opened its doors, and is inviting players to ‘register their interest‘.

APB often gets labelled GTA: The MMO - having conceived of the series, Jones departed DMA Design / Rockstar North before GTA III was released and formed the studio that would later become Realtime Worlds.

All Points Bulletin is a near future crime oriented MMO, and it looks, frankly, awesome.

Kotaku has what I think might be one of the very first hands on previews of Grimm - American McGee’s latest episodic pet project. Check out the trailer here.

Grimm follows in McGee’s existing footsteps into the twisted fairy tale genre with titles like Alice and the cancelled Oz. It’s to be released in 24 half hour episodes - a first, I believe - with each episode following a different Brothers Grimm tale.

An adventure type experience, the game follows Grimm the troll as he wanders about the fairy tales perverting them to his own twisted ends.

It certainly sounds like an interesting and unique concept, and I’m excited to see how this fresh episodic structure works out. Of course, everything should be taken with a pinch of salt - McGee is a would be auteur whose every release since leaving id Software ten years ago has been greeted with less and less vigour. Alice nets 85% on Metacritic, 2004’s Scrapland just 72%, and most recently Bad Day LA tallied out at 28%.

Let’s hope new Chinese studio Spicy Horse can turn things around.

The first episode of Grimm is due on 31st July 2008.

A recent essay from Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Diaz on The Wall Street Journal website has critically dismissed GTA IV, stating “GTA IV is brilliant, but despite what virtually all the reviews clam, it ain’t the revolution.”

“I love GTA IV and I have no doubt that it is art, but an equal to The Sopranos or The Godfather? Narrative art of that caliber is distinguished by its ability to re-organize our preconceptions, to shift us into a world that’s always been there but that we’ve been afraid to acknowledge, and I’m not convinced that GTA IV pulls off that miracle,” said the writer.

And you know what? He’s dead right. GTA IV may be by video game standards, even by Hollywood standards, a magnificent work of art. It is, however, barely scratching the surface of the medium’s potential, and still a far cry from true artistic achievement. It’s a step in the right direction, but does it take us anywhere very much beyond cheap entertainment (of the very highest calibre)?

No. The sad fact is that interactive entertainment is immature, under confident and lacking motivation.

But that’s OK, because it’s early days. 20 years into the history of film, the medium had hardly left black and white - but look what we’ve achieved in that time.

It’s early days, Junot, but we’re getting there.

Next-Gen is running a story with Yves Guillemot - chief exec of Ubisoft - concerning the challenge level we can expect to see in BGE2.

“We think the game was probably a little too difficult for the general gamers at that time. We’re going to make it more accessible and make sure that it’s really done for the new generation that’s come into videogames.”

To balance that with some good news, apparently it’s going to be the ‘future of games’, and it certainly looks from the trailer as if BGE2 might be setting its sights considerably further afield than the original.

On a serious note, the promise of the game being ‘more casual’ does, of course, strike fear into my gaming heart - the original was pretty damn easy, and the thought of dumbing down is understandably abhorent.

However, on a little more reflection, I’m not sure this is a bad thing. The point is, BGE1 was never challenging in the Quake IV sense - it was more about the experience - so the fact that the sequel is further seeking to draw in a more mainstream audience is really only in keeping with the series’ ethos.

At the end of the the day, BGE is one of very few games we can hold up high and say ‘Not all games are about explosions and tits. Some of them are about love, and nature and characterisation.’ The fact that a game like that is going to be approachable for the non-gaming massive can’t be a bad thing.

Perhaps when Fox tries to claim Jade has inter-species sex with a talking pig, they’ll actually play the game and realise what’s really going on.

I’m not sure what the bigger news is: that SF IV is confirmed for home consoles (let’s be honest, it was never going to stay in arcades), or that the series is making its PC debut.

EDIT: I’ve been put to shame at length by SF fans far more knowledgeable than myself -this won’t actually be the series’ debut on Windows, but it will be the first one I’ve played.

From the press release:

“The Street Fighter series has become a pillar in the fighting videogame genre. Street Fighter IV for Xbox 360, PLAYSTATION 3 system and Windows-based PC continues this tradition of excellence with a return to the classic 2D Street Fighter fighting action mixed with new characters, amazing visuals, and next-generation fluid gameplay.”

That’s also a new screen up there at the top for you to feast your eyes on - this game does look stunning.

I was a big SF2 fan at the time, though to be honest I’ve somewhat lost track of the series since its 3D incarnations. Still, the return to 2D values seems to be working its magic, and I’m potentially now very excited.

It’s ironic, really. In a time when everyone’s carrying on about PC exclusives dying out, one of the most iconic console series ever arrives on Windows for the first time - things are certainly changing, no doubt about that, but perhaps consoles becoming a bit more PC-like, and the PC becoming a bit more console-like isn’t such a bad thing after all.

On Thursday I’ll be posting this week’s feature. It’s talking about games as art, and linking to some great little indie developments (all free downloads) that are pushing the boundaries. It’s called ‘Free Indie Games - Games as Art: The Evidence’. It would just be called ‘Games as Art: The Evidence’, but if you don’t mention the free games bit, no one reads it.

If it’s Thursday already, and you’ve just joined us from the feature itself, welcome, what did you think?

I talk about some games like Seven Minutes and The Graveyard and largely conclude that yes, games can be considered art, but no, they haven’t quite got it sussed yet.

Agree? Disagree? Want to cave my head in with a crowbar, or crown me king of hyperbole? Let’s talk!

Hardly shocking - but I’m for once going to remain non-cynical on this one. I may even be slightly positive about it.

Yes, plainly EA has identified Nintendo’s inventive and astounding success with Wii Fit and the Balance Board, and has a case of the Me-Toos. It wouldn’t be EA if it hadn’t. However, as well received as Wii Fit has been, there have been complaints and weaknesses, especially in the Western market, and it seems to me EA may well be the company to put that right.

“We also need to make sure we’re delivering something that’s truly exercise. I’ll call [Wii Fit] more eastern fitness, where it senses weight and balance, like Tai-Chi. It’s more about holistic fitness.” The wise words of Peter Moore, ex Xbox boss, current EA Sports President.

It seems to me that if there’s something EA’s good at, it’s producing mass marketable games that get ever so slightly better with each iteration - and that’s not something that seems to conflict with the concept of a fitness game, nor is it something Nintendo is likely to manage itself.

The game will release on the as yet unused EA Freestyle label, and it’ll be a great test of EA’s true development metal, and new innovation-friendly stance.

The fourth in the new series of PoP games has been officially announced, and the first details revealed in a recent issue of Edge. That’s the full article link there, so get cracking.

What do you mean ‘you can’t be arsed’?

OK, OK, here come the bullets.

- It uses an advanced Assassin’s Creed engine

- It’s going open-world

- It’s going heavier on the fantasy, less on the Arabian theme

- The Sands of Time and related abilities are all gone (no rewinding)

- Combat is massively altered, with a one-on-one style being adopted

- An Okami-like manipulation of the world is promised, in realtime

To be perfectly honest, as a staunch Sand of Time fan, all of that sounds absolutely dreadful. There’s genuinely not one thing there that makes me happy. I can see the appeal of an open world and all that, don’t get me wrong, but it seems like everything that made SoT fantastic has been gradually dropped over the space of the next three games.

Still, as is always the way in games, someone else will come along and do everything Ubisoft were doing, only better and more imaginatively. We saw Lara utterly dethroned by the original PoP, and now my sights are firmly set on Mirror’s Edge to claim the next-gen platforming throne.

Ubisoft have unearthed the new Prince of Persia teaser website, which will be home to the next installment in the series entitled, Prodigy.This follows on from the recent news that creator and owner of the Prince of Persia game franchise Jordan Mechner, filed to protect the trademark, Prince of Persia Prodigy.

Tom’s Comment

This announcement raises an issue I’d not been clear on previously, but which I’ve now delved into, which is Mechner’s involvement with PoP since Sands of Time. There was a strong move away from the intelligent, mature humour of Sands of Time which lead to the childish angst-ridden sequels, and my understanding was that Mechner had no part in them - where he had co-designed and written Sands.

As Paul’s reported above, Mechner owns the rights to the PoP series - which is itself a rare and lovely thing - and so was certainly involved at least in name with Warrior Within and Two Thrones. Whether or not these were already contracted, and hence Mechner’s comment that he was unhappy with the artistic direction, or that he was just happy to grab the cash will, I suppose be confirmed by the next game. Let’s hope he takes the reigns again, as he will do in the film, and gives the PoP series the homecoming it deserves.

Guess what score it got. Go one, guess.

The full OXM review has been scanned and posted on the net for all to see. You can grab the scans here.

Looks like the biggest news in the not brilliantly detailed article is the inclusion of real world celebs playing themselves in the game - something that had been hinted at copiously in the past.

Before you grab the pages, there are some caveats - apparently the review isn’t based on complete code, though it does reveal details that haven’t been present in previews.

Following the controversial recent announcement that Gearbox and Double Fusion are partnering to bring in-game advertising to Brother in Arms and Borderlands, the developer has released some in-game shots to put fears to rest.

As you can see, it’s all very tasteful. Lovely. Hit the link for more. As if we ever doubted.

Does this sort of advertising add to a game’s atmosphere, or does it still detract from the experience for you?

7 Minutes is a game-in-a-week formed from traditional platforming mechanics, stylised and perfectly pitched to tell a story.

The game pitches you as a man - who looks strangely like a small black square with eyes - who has seven minutes left to live. The game taunts you as you progress through its many levels, all the time the clock ticking down.

It’s a profound tale, told largely through the platforming elements rather than any fancy cut scenes or dialogue, and well worth the effort just for that.

No, it’s not perfect, yes, it’s very annoying. But is this sort of stuff exciting? Definitely.

Well, either exciting, or pretentious. Give it a go and let us know what you think.

Grab it here.

Take Two has announced its Q1 financials, and with it a bevy of info regarding the Bioshlock sequel. Specifically that yes, it’s in development at the 2K Marin studio established for that purpose last year, and yes, Ken Levine (the game’s Big Daddy) will have some involvement.

The story goes that a large part of the original Bioshock team make up the core of the new studio. Now, call me cynical, but this all seems a little too perfect to me. Let’s be honest, the team at Irrational (Levine’s System Shock 2 producing studio, now known as 2K Boston) must be pretty gosh darned talented, but it’s Levine’s creative vision that saw Bioshock emerge in the state it did. His writing, his world design, his vision. So the fact that the cleaner and the IT guy from Boston are now at 2K Marin is hardly cause for joy.

What’s more, 2K obviously understands how ‘core’ Bioshock is - it’s aimed at and consumed by us, a well informed and cynical lot. Therefore, trying to launch a Bioshock sequel without Levine’s branding on it would be difficult. So what do you do? Get him to look over the odd level design, and claim he’s involved at an executive level.

Bioshock 2 is rumoured to be a prequel, but I can’t help but feel that it’ll capitalise on the less interesting parts of the first one - the shooting and the basic enemies - because they’re easy to tackle, and all the other things that made the game such an interesting prospect will probably fall by the wayside.

It’ll be a telling time for 2K.